Police in the north of the country have arrested an alleged serial killer who preyed on homeless people he brought to his home where he murdered and dismembered them, officials said Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The murders \u2013 at least five are known to investigators \u2013 always took place on Fridays.<\/p>\n
A 37-year-old man later identified as Mat\u00edas Jurado by local press was arrested after a raid on his home last week yielded human \u00abbones, blood, pieces of skin and even a nose,\u00bb Attorney General Sergio Lello S\u00e1nchez of Jujuy Province said via telephone Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The raid was the result of clues gathered from analysing security camera footage.<\/p>\n
At the house where they arrested the man, police also encountered a 16-year-old boy who appeared scared and said he was the owner’s nephew, said Lello S\u00e1nchez.<\/p>\n
He told police: \u00abI want to talk,\u00bb and then recounted that his uncle would go out on Friday afternoons and return at night with different people.<\/p>\n
He apparently lured them with offers of a job or a drink.<\/p>\n
The boy said his uncle would \u00abbeat them, kill them, cut their bodies, burn them, and take them out in garbage bags,\u00bb case prosecutor Guillermo Beller told the A24 news channel.<\/p>\n
The victims were homeless and mostly elderly people, added Lello S\u00e1nchez.<\/p>\n
The investigation started after evidence emerged that five missing people had last been seen alive in the same place, near an old bus terminal in the city of San Salvador de Jujuy.<\/p>\n
Security footage showed two of them getting into taxis with the same person at different times.<\/p>\n
A taxi-driver took the police to the house where he had dropped his clients.<\/p>\n
The man, who insists he is innocent, was charged Monday with aggravated homicide and placed in pre-trial detention for four months pending the investigation that Lello S\u00e1nchez said was at an \u00abearly stage.\u00bb<\/p>\n
Investigators were still in the process of analysing the remains and extracting DNA samples from relatives of missing persons to try and identify the dead.<\/p>\n
According to Lello S\u00e1nchez, the victims \u201cwere people who wandered the streets in marginalised situations,\u201d most of them elderly.<\/p>\n
Jurado previously served jail-time for theft, according to reports.<\/p>\n
Beller told the Noticias Argentinas news agency that the accused had been arrested for mugging and burglary.<\/p>\n
The court official stressed that different locals had testified and called Jurado \u00abviolent\u00bb because he was known for running conflicts in the local neighbourhood of Alto Comedero.<\/p>\n
Beller stated that the victims had been identified as Juan Carlos Gonz\u00e1lez, aged 60; Juan Jos\u00e9 Ponce (age 51); Miguel \u00c1ngel Quispe (age 60); Sergio Alejandro Sosa (age 25) and Jorge Omar Anachuri (age 60).<\/p>\n
\u00abThey were homeless people, two of them recorded by a security camera getting into a taxi with Jurado to go to his home and the GPS of a mobile phone also placed another one there,\u00bb the prosecutor highlighted.<\/p>\n
Beller said that there is a link between the cases since all victims were homeless and two of them suffered from some kind of disability.<\/p>\n
An essential contribution to the investigation was the deposition by a 16-year-old teenager, the nephew of the accused.<\/p>\n
He told the authorities that the man \u201cquartered the people he took home and then got rid of the remains in waste ground or buried them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jurado is currently being held at Gorriti prison in San Salvador de Jujuy.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2013 TIMES\/NA\/AFP
\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n